The first Monday in September has come to mean more than just the traditional return to school; the end of the school holidays also denotes a return to serious business after the summer break.
Despite dropping numbers, our school going population is still very large relative to our population, with a high proportion of pupils remaining in the system to Leaving Certificate level.
But the writing is on the wall; enrolments have been falling steadily in primary schools and within five years they will be down by 50,000. Already, the tensions resulting from the fall in numbers are showing with a threatened national teachers' strike over the redeployment of 100 teachers now deemed surplus to requirements due to falling enrollments. The Minister for Education, Ms Breathnach, wants to redeploy them into disadvantaged areas where the needs are greatest but the INTO would prefer them to be used to reduce class sizes in their immediate area.
Already a commission is working on a rationalisation plan which will inevitably involve the amalgamation of schools and, in some cases, closures. The closure of the smaller Vocational Education Committees is also an integral part of the rationalisation which must inevitably result from falling enrollments due to the decline in births from 1981 onwards. Such moves will prove controversial and unpopular in many areas. In all probability, the threatened INTO strike is just a forerunner of many controversies which will arise as the system is forced to adjust to a smaller number of students.
From the end of the decade, falling pupil numbers should also lead to reduced demand for third level places among school leavers. This places the Minister for Education and the Higher Education Authority in the difficult situation. Both are under pressure to increase the number of available places in order to meet the current strong demand but both will also want to avoid huge capital outlay on places which may no longer be needed within a decade. There is a salutary lesson to be learned from British experience where colleges are often engaged in an unseemly scramble for students and actively poach from each other.
The positive aspect of falling numbers is that it allows the Department of Education a respite from the decades of endless school building which was required to simply keep pace with expanding numbers. This retrenchment should make more resources available for curriculum review and for in service training of teachers. Already, advances are being made with the introduction of the Transition Year and the option of the Applied Leaving Certificate. But the concerns among some Leaving Cert examiners about literacy standards even in higher level English would indicate the need for more reflection on teaching methods and overall standards. With less of an emphasis on bricks and mortar, it should now be possible to achieve these objectives. There is, clearly, an urgent need to provide the 40,000 - mostly dedicated and high calibre - teachers with the resources and in service training to deliver even better standards.